Der Richter bin ich

I got the chance to see this film today in a movie theater in its original 3-D glory. And WOW- not NEARLY as mediocre as you've heard. The audience LOVED it- what WAS bad dialogue is now hysterically camp. Biff Elliot (the screen's first Mike Hammer) was in attendence, full of vigor at age 80. A charming man, some wonderful anecdotes about his Hollywood experiences, but in his first film, he doesn't cut it. However, the supporting cast is wonderful- Peggy Castle is not only beautiful, but does a wonderful film noir dame. And my almost-Mother-In-Law Margaret Sheridan turns in outstanding support as Mike's secretary Velda...sexy & wise-crackingly smart(she retired in the early 60's to be a housewife and mother to two daughters- unfortunately, she passed away from cancer in 1981). A lot of "B" stars show up, like Elisha Cook Jr. and Joe Besser(the great tie-in to Joe was the 3-D Three Stooges short PARDON MY BACKFIRE which was also shown). And, as for the 3-D, it was rarely shown in that format, and the print shown was definately worn by time, but while there was no mandatory "throw it in your face" shots, the 3-D emminently added to the film's mood, with some wonderful photography, especially in L.A.'s Bradbury Building. I will definately check this one out again, albeit in it's "flat" version!

The first film adaptation of a Mickey Spillane novel, filmed in 3D and starring one of the all-time nobodies, Biff Elliot, as Mike Hammer. He looks like William Bendix's younger brother and acts like Lon Chaney, Jr. in "Of Mice and Men." The selling point of any movie based on a Spillane story, aside from the violence, should be the dialogue. That's true here, with lots of tough noir one-liners. Unfortunately, many of those are bellowed by Elliot, who barges into every scene like he's mad someone made him take this job. Seriously, watch this guy stomp around. Someone hired this moose to act and this is what they got. Even the film's famous final scene is tainted by his inability to deliver a line with emotion.

On the plus side, the movie was photographed by John Alton. He makes the most of the cheap production values. Good use of the Bradbury Building, which is recognizable to fans of films like D.O.A. and Blade Runner. Nice score from Franz Waxman. The supporting cast includes many lesser known actors but there are a few old pros like Preston Foster, John Qualen, and Elisha Cook, Jr. How any of them kept a straight face while that sack of meat was barking at them is beyond me. Attractive Peggie Castle makes an unconvincing psychologist and is even less convincing as a woman attracted to Elliot.

This movie has a lot that prevents it from being great. But all of the other issues combined don't equal the sheer ineptitude of casting Biff Elliot as Mike Hammer. This was his film debut and he never did anything this big again. He worked fairly steady for decades, mostly in television. I have no idea why he was cast. Worked cheap? Saved the producer's life? Knew where the bodies were buried? I don't know. All I do know is he stinks in this.

The screen debut of Mike Hammer 'force of nature' and self-appointed judge, jury and executioner. Biff Elliott had an apt name to portray a detective who tends to punch in the mouth first and asks questions later. He does talk like a man whom has been hit over the head on numerous occasions but is totally outclassed by his co-star Peggie Castle, sensational as the duplicitous shrink Charlotte Manning. The narrative seems to consist almost entirely of scenes of vicious beatings-up and murders, and as in so many other movies of its type, the hero can take any amount of punches to the face and emerge unscathed. I might have found it all rather tiresome had the film been more efficiently constructed, but the generous amount of ludicrous dialogue and the generally ham-fisted approach made it almost perversely entertaining. I was amused by good old Elisha Cook Jr. and his queen bee, though this inadvertently pointed Hammer in the right direction. The finale, with the now desperate Charlotte's attempted seduction of Hammer, is unforgettable.

This is such a tough-guy noir that it almost comes off as a take-off.

I, the Jury concerns Mike Hammer's search for the killer of his friend, Jack. Eventually other people who attended the same party as Jack are killed as well.

From what I gather, this was shown in 3-D some time in 2003, with the star, Biff Elliott (then 80) present. The audience loved it - mainly because all the dialogue is now considered "camp."

One thing Elliot could do was beat up people, since he had previously been a boxer. Just no dimension to the character. I would have loved to have seen someone like Ralph Meeker in this film.

Of note was the very neat opening scene, which I imagine played very well in 3-D. The last scene of the film was very effective as well.

The women in the movie were lovely - Mary Anderson does a good job as Eileen Vickers. Margaret Sheridan was a lovely Velda, and Peggie Castle was a stunning Charlotte, one of the many women in love with Mike. The other performances were okay.

As the first film Mike Hammer, one would assume it brought Elliot attention and, in other hands, could have been a star-making role. Though he continued working for years, it wasn't as a star. Sadly I think better casting would have helped "I, The Jury" immensely.

In 1953, I, The Jury became the first of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer series to hit the screen, but it takes its cues from movies of 1947, when the book hit the kiosks. The yuletide cards serving as scene dividers, the violence counterpointed to Christmas carols recall The Lady in the Lake, while the duplicitous female psychiatrist reprises Helen Walker's Dr. Lilith Ritter in Nightmare Alley (the final, fatal tryst comes from the even earlier Double Indemnity).

These echoes may have been attempts to invest Hammer with some respectability, linking him to the more subtle and textured characters of the 1940s. It's clear something had to be done with him, because Spillane went for raw sensation in a way that caused a sensation of its own. His private eye is uncouth, short-fused and randy but misogynist, bowing to no authority save his own (hence the title). Spillane luckily or shrewdly had as readers of his punch-drunk prose men who had survived overseas combat and were making up for lost time in the footloose, post-war prosperity; he gave them not just sex and violence but sex-and-violence.

So in one sense, Biff Elliott makes an ideal Hammer, closer to Spillane's lout than his (relatively) spruced-up successors Ralph Meeker and Robert Bray (plus Armand Assante, in the marginally better 1982 remake of this title). He comes across as a Dead End kid grown up with a license and a gun, slow-witted but fast with his fists and his trigger.

When his best friend, an insurance investigator and combat amputee, gets himself coldly killed, Hammer scours New York to avenge him. The urban locales bring out the talents of director of photography John Alton, who here tried his hand at the 3-D process (thus I, The Jury, along with Man in the Dark, The Glass Web and Second Chance, becomes one of the few noirs so filmed).

The shoot-from-the-hip action, however, rides roughshod over any intricacies of the plot. Characters Hammer encounters stay generic, with the exception of Peggie Castle as the shrink. The film's last scene is hers, not Elliott's, as she moves into a languorous striptease that comes to a quick finale. For better or worse, it's an emblematic image that showcases Spillane's coarsened sensibility, his fusion of brutality and eroticism, and spells an end to the more freighted ambiguity that was a hallmark of the noir cycle.